node (nod) noun1.A knob, knot, protuberance, or swelling.2.a. Botany. The point on a stem where a leaf
is attached or has been attached; a joint.3.Physics. A point or region of virtually zero
amplitude in a periodic system.4.Mathematics. The point at which a continuous
curve crosses itself.5.Computer Science. A terminal in a computer network.6.Astronomy. a. Either of two diametrically opposite
points at which the orbit of a planet intersects the ecliptic. b. Either
of two points at which the orbit of a satellite intersects the orbital
plane of a planet.

[Middle English, lump in the flesh, from Latin nodus,
knot.]

Node

Node, a junction of some type. In computer science,
on local area networks,
a device that is connected to the network and is capable of communicating
with other network devices.In tree structures (used in database
management and object-oriented programming), a location (set of information)
on the tree that can have links to one or more nodes below it (child nodes).
Some authors make a distinction between node and element, with an element
being a given data type and a node comprising one or more elements as well
as any supporting data structures (such as pointers).

node of Ranvier

node of Ranvier (nÖd ùv rän´vyA,
rän-vyA´, räN-) nounplural nodes of RanvierA constriction in the myelin sheath, occurring
at varying intervals along the length of a nerve fiber.

[After Louis Antoine Ranvier (1835-1922), French histologist.]

Engineers at
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., successfully contacted UoSAT-12
spacecraft through a ground station in Surrey, England, using Internetping
packets. The project, called Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet (OMNI),
was the first time
that a spacecraft ever had its own Internet address and was a fully RFC-compliant
active node on the Internet.

The best tool for displaying and manipulating systems
is the computer, which allows us to display a system and then observe it from
any perspective. We can "navigate" the system, moving from one node to another,
exploring the contents of each node and the essence of the links between nodes.

~~ John L. Petersen

In The Postmodern Condition, Jean-Francois Lyotard claims
that "the self...is always located at 'nodal points' of specific communications
circuits....No one, not even the least privileged among us, is ever entirely
powerless over the messages that traverse and position him at the post of sender,
addressee, or referent."

- Erik Davis

Any network
has two ingredients: nodes and connections. In the grand network we are now
assembling, the size of the nodes is collapsing while the quantity and quality
of the connections are exploding. These two physical realms, the collapsing
microcosm of silicon
and the exploding telecosm of connections, form the matrix
through which the new economy of ideas flows.

This sense of secret sharing helps explain the growing
desire to transcode the real,
as when one signal source (Web traffic, a trumpet, the rate of rainforest loss)
is translated into data that mutates into another form (3D models, machine rhythms,
articulations of a robot arm). What exactly happens in these events? Are the
patterns and affects suggested by such processes
part of the world, or simply artifacts of the criteria of translation? This
ancient problem–is the form in the world or the eye?–suspends itself in the
new operations of the transcoding mix, which makes the phenomena it describes.
The nodes around us–the nodes that we are–are not passive switches, but grow
in strength and insight through their range of materials, the nature and novelty
of their connections and mutual exchanges. Cosmic eros is not exhausted, and
implosion may only be a media-induced hallucination of an emerging nest of integration.

Erik Davis - _Anchors Aweigh!_

track _Swamp_ MP3
by Node off of _Excursions In Ambience:
The Fourth Frontier_ compilation CD